News Releases

Work to Begin at Reef Environmental Site in Sylacauga, AL

(ATLANTA – December 12, 2012) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) and local officials will begin work at the Reef Environmental Plant in Sylacauga, AL. on Thursday, December 13, 2012. The neighboring communities to the Reef site are advised that there will be greater than normal traffic of heavy equipment, including tanker trucks.

The Reef LLC facility located at 71 Twin Street, Sylacauga, Alabama was a centralized industrial waste water treatment facility. The facility was permitted to accept waste water and oily waste from other industries for treatment and discharge to a public operated treatment works (POTW) in Sylacauga. Shortly after the first waste deliveries began, local and state government officials received numerous odor complaints. Subsequent assessments identified unstable conditions relating of accumulating gases (organic and hydrogen sulfide) under a tarp/liner over the Biological Treatment Basin at the facility and an oily sheen being released from the facility as well as abandoned hazardous chemicals both on the facility grounds and in the onsite facility lab.